Burns, who narrowly lost his re-election bid to Democrat Jon Tester, is known for having a short fuse. Still, the venom in Burns’ reaction Tuesday to a question about the status of the Interior appropriations bill in the lame-duck session was surprising.

“You don’t run this place. You think you do. But you don’t,” added Burns, who chairs the Appropriations Interior Subcommittee.

A number of Montana news outlets reported similar incidents during the campaign. For example, the senator was criticized at one point for telling a group of firefighters that they had “done a poor job” in combating a 92,000-acre fire.

He later told a representative from the state’s natural resource agency, “See that guy over there? He hasn’t done a goddamned thing. They sit around. . . . It’s wasteful.”